Modifying one’s hand’s trajectory when a moving target’s orientation changes

The path that the hand takes to intercept an elongated moving target depends on the target’s orientation. How quickly do people respond to changes in the moving target’s orientation? In the present study, participants were asked to intercept moving targets that sometimes abruptly changed orientation shortly after they started moving. It took the participants slightly more than 150 ms to adjust their hands’ paths to a change in target orientation. This is about 50 ms longer than it took them to respond to a 5-mm jump in the moving target’s position. It is only slightly shorter than it took them to initiate the movement. We propose that responses to changes in visually perceived orientation are not exceptionally fast, because there is no relationship between target orientation and direction of hand movement that is sufficiently general in everyday life for one to risk making an inappropriate response in order to respond faster.     

Felty’s Syndrome

Felty's syndrome is a complication of rheumatoid arthritis whereby patients develop neutropenia of varying severity. Although the main clinical concern is the development of serious infections, often patients remain asymptomatic or continue with clinical problems related to the rheumatoid arthritis and not to the neutropenia. There is now considerable clinical experience with the use of the recombinant human haemopoietic growth factors granulocyte and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factors (G-CSF and GM-CSF) in the treatment of patients with Felty's syndrome. The only indication for the use of either growth factor for Felty's syndrome is the onset of infectious complications, which may be recurrent and serious. In general, when this occurs, the neutropenia is severe (<10(8) cells/L). The mechanism(s) underlying development of the neutropenia in Felty's syndrome is similar to that in other forms of immune-mediated neutropenia, and in general is associated with a terminal defect in neutrophil maturation. It is likely that the maturational defect is a consequence of ;immune based' inhibition, although we lack detailed understanding of this inhibitory process. Growth factor therapy does not relieve the defect in terminal maturation, but in general may induce a significant improvement in the peripheral white cell count. Instances where growth factor therapy does not work appear to be due to an inability to overcome the maturational defect. Thus, the level of granulopoietic inhibition mediated by the rheumatoid process varies in severity among patients. To date, treatment options for Felty's syndrome have included disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, corticosteroids and splenectomy. The addition of growth factor therapy is a welcome addition to these less than optimal treatment options. However, all of the above therapies fail on occasion. Moreover, the dosage and frequency of growth factors must be titrated to keep the white blood cell count <5 x 10(9) cells/L, since overshoot may result in complications, the most common being exacerbation of the rheumatoid arthritis. Another mechanism by which these drugs may exacerbate rheumatoid arthritis is through activation of neutrophils. The addition of disease-modifying drugs may relieve the maturational defect, improve the peripheral white cell count and minimise disease exacerbation by limiting neutrophil exposure to the administered haemopoietic growth factor. However, long term monotherapy with G-CSF has been successfully employed without requiring disease-modifying therapy.     

Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) represent a heterogenous group of diseases including low, intermediate and high grade histological subtypes. Most entities are sensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, most relapsed patients are incurable with conventional treatment. The major reason for unsatisfactory long-term results in NHL is tumour cells that persist after standard treatment. New sensitive techniques have been developed to detect occult lymphoma cells. These cells might be eradicated by new immunotherapeutic agents with different modes of action, such as cytokines or antibody-based agents. In NHL, most experience has been accumulated with interferon-alpha, which seems to be effective against minimal residual disease (MRD). The experience with interleukin-2 and interleukin-3 is less convincing. Monoclonal antibodies have been used in their native form, or conjugated with radioisotopes or toxins to selectively destroy lymphoma cells. Such immunotoxins and radioisotope-coupled antibodies have shown promising results in early clinical trials, and are now being evaluated in patients with smaller tumour burdens.     

Acrel’s ganglion

No data exists in the extant literature regarding the distal swelling of the posterior interosseous nerve (Acrel’s ganglion). To further elucidate this ganglion, ten adult cadavers (20 sides) underwent dissection and histological examination of this structure. No inflammatory response was noted in these histologically normal peripheral nerve structures. No neuronal cell bodies were identified. Although the etiology of such swellings is unclear, the term “ganglia” should not be applied to these enlargements of the distal posterior interosseous nerve.     

Infants’ recognition of their mothers’ faces in facial drawings

This study examined the development of ability to recognize familiar face in drawings in infants aged 6–8 months. In Experiment 1, we investigated infants’ recognition of their mothers’ faces by testing their visual preference for their mother’s face over a stranger’s face under three conditions: photographs, cartoons produced by online software that simplifies and enhances the contours of facial features of line drawings, and veridical line drawings. We found that 7- and 8-month-old infants showed a significant preference for their mother’s face in photographs and cartoons, but not in veridical line drawings. In contrast, 6-month-old infants preferred their mother’s face only in photographs. In Experiment 2, we investigated a visual preference for an upright face over an inverted face for cartoons and veridical line drawings in 6- to 8-month-old infants, finding that infants aged older than 6 months showed the inversion effect in face preference in both cartoons and veridical line drawings. Our results imply that the ability to utilize the enhanced information of a face to recognize familiar faces may develop aged around 7 months of age.     

Caregivers’ Advice and Children’s Bystander Behaviors During Bullying Incidents

Many bullying prevention programs take a bystander approach, which encourages children to intervene when they are bystanders to bullying incidents. Little is known about how caregivers’ advice to children might promote or undermine the positive bystander behaviors targeted by these programs. Accordingly, the aim of the current study was to investigate relations between caregivers’ advice and children’s bystander behavior during bullying situations. Participants were 106 racially/ethnically diverse 4th- and 5th-grade students (M age = 10.5 years, SD = .71 years), their classmates, and their caregivers. During classroom visits, peers reported on children’s bystander behaviors. During home visits, caregivers and children completed a coded interaction task in which caregivers advised children about how to respond to bullying situations at school. Results suggested that (a) bystander intervention was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice to help/comfort the victim, (b) bystander passivity was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice to not intervene and negatively predicted by caregivers’ advice to help/comfort the victim, and (c) bystander reinforcement/assistance of the bully was positively predicted by caregivers’ advice not to intervene and not to tell adults. Results support a link between caregivers’ advice at home and children’s corresponding behavior when they are bystanders to bullying situations at school. These results emphasize the importance of collaboration between families and schools to reduce school bullying. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Wright’s与Giemsa’s联合染色法染神经元尼氏体

Wright’s与Giemsa’s联合染色法是血涂片的常用方法，本人将其用于神经组织的染色，发现其染神经元尼氏体的染色效果非常好，并且易保存、不褪色。现介绍如下：